


Mixes and measures

by lavishsqualor



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavishsqualor/pseuds/lavishsqualor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean bakes Sammy a cake for his thirteenth birthday, and things don't go quite as he'd expected them to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixes and measures

**Author's Note:**

> **a/n:** Written for [](http://callistosh65.livejournal.com/profile)[**callistosh65**](http://callistosh65.livejournal.com/) 's [prompt](http://spn-rambleon.livejournal.com/1697.html?thread=2209#t2209) at [](http://spn-rambleon.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_rambleon**](http://spn-rambleon.livejournal.com/) 's [Hiatus of Dean Love wish fulfillment meme](http://spn-rambleon.livejournal.com/1697.html). And I definitely wouldn't have had the guts to post this without my two amazing alphas, [](http://sobrecogimiento.livejournal.com/profile)[**sobrecogimiento**](http://sobrecogimiento.livejournal.com/) and [](http://silverraven.livejournal.com/profile)[**silverraven**](http://silverraven.livejournal.com/). Many thanks and so much love to them! ♥ ♥ ♥  
> 

  
Sam's only gonna turn thirteen once, Dean thought to himself. He kept reminding himself of that, as it was his only remaining motivation to keep on with this little project.

Earlier in the day, Dean had walked to the little mom n' pop grocery store in their current one stoplight town and made his way through the dark, narrow aisles, picking up what he thought were essential cake-baking supplies: some flour, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and of course, chocolate. But, really, he'd had no idea what a process he was getting himself into. Luckily, Dad had left the computer at the house they were squatting in, so he could at least look up a recipe. And originally, he'd thought it would be simple: mix everything together and throw it in a pan. Easy as pie.

But after he'd read the recipe, and as he got to work in the kitchen that had few cooking utensils, peeling yellowed wallpaper, and only the bare appliances, he quickly discovered that he was wrong.

First, he had to "cream together the sugar and butter," and once he got over how ridiculous that sounded he realized that he didn't really understand what the hell that even meant. Cream? As a verb? His intuition told him that it meant he should make them creamy. Good thing Dad taught him all the important things in life.

So he sliced off what he estimated to be half a cup of butter from the stick, tossed it into the one large mixing bowl present in the ramshackle kitchen, and followed it up with a cup of sugar. To figure that out, he just grabbed one of the few drinking glasses from the cupboard. Glass, cup, what could be the difference?

But creaming them together proved more difficult than he'd expected. The butter was damned hard! He spent what felt like hours, though was probably actually closer to a half of one, jabbing at the butter and sugar until they finally reached a combined consistency that he thought might be considered "creamy."

Thankfully, the next couple steps turned out to be more manageable. He beat in the eggs, then added a glass and a half of flour. He skipped adding any vanilla or baking powder, like the recipe called for; hadn't thought to buy any, because, after all, all he was adding to the mix were white things, how could it not be vanilla already? And he was _baking_ a fucking cake, so how was something called baking powder supposed to make that any more true?

He kinda wished that he had an electric mixer to use – like the recipe suggested – or even a whisk, whatever the hell that was, because mixing all the flour in uniformly with a fork was somewhat difficult. He assumed that there weren't supposed to be any lumps in the batter, and god help him, he tried.

Finally, he added half a glass of milk to the mix. And, thank goodness, adding that helped out with the lump situation quite a bit. In fact, it ended up almost totally lumpless. Really, though, he credited his wicked upper body strength for the fact that the batter was looking good. (And if his right bicep happened to be a little sore from all that mixing, that wasn't anything he ever planned on admitting to a single soul.)

The recipe said to add the mix to a greased pan. He searched the damn kitchen high and low for that, but all he could come up with was some mustard yellow casserole-dish-looking thing. It'd have to do. He greased it up with a little butter and poured in the mix, smiling to himself the whole while, because look at him, baking a fucking cake. After that, he threw it in the oven, which, luckily, he'd remembered to preset to 350°. He couldn't believe how long that first part had taken, and he was afraid he was running out of time before Sam would get back from the middle school. After checking the clock above the sink, he aimed to take a look to see how the cake was doing in about a half hour. Plenty of time to finish up the frosting.

He hadn't thought to buy cocoa powder, just a chocolate bar. But he'd learned his lesson after trying to cream that butter earlier, so he grabbed a small pot and heated it on the stove. To the pot, he added six spoonfuls of butter and six squares of the chocolate. And waited for them to melt.

It didn't take too long before a slight burning smell was coming from the stove, and he looked over to see the pot smoking a little bit. Holy shit, he thought, and grabbed a spoon, quickly stirring the crap out of it, which seemed to help a bit, thank god.

Finally, they melted together. He took it off the stove and brought it over to the counter where he began to add the remaining ingredients. Just sugar and milk, because why would he add vanilla to chocolate frosting? And he hadn't thought to buy "evaporated" milk – what the hell was that anyway – so real milk'd have to do. He carefully measured out one spoonful after another and then dumped three glasses of sugar into the liquid.

"Beat until light and fluffy," the recipe had said. Oh, he thought, he could handle that, master beater that he was, and couldn't help but snicker to himself.

But, Jesus Christ, was his arm getting tired quicker this time. Hmm, perhaps he wasn't really a master beater.

Eventually, though, the mixture reached what he thought was satisfactorily "light and fluffy." And thank fuck, because when he looked at the clock again almost forty minutes had passed. Damn, he was slow at this baking shit.

He opened the oven and peered in. Thought it looked good, and besides, the smell was overwhelmingly delicious, so it had to be cooked, right? But, when he reached in to grab the dish, he withdrew almost immediately, having burned the shit out of his hand. _Fuck_ , why didn't the recipe warn him it'd be hot? He was great at problem-solving, though, since he was Dean Winchester, so he covered his hand with a rag and pulled it out, having no problem ignoring the smarting of the burn.

Half an hour till Sammy'd be home, and more than enough time to frost this bitch, he thought. He started throwing globs of the frosting on to the cake, and didn't notice at first that it was melting all over the place.

When he did, he decided to clean up while it cooled a bit. Threw all the dishes, really just the one bowl and a couple utensils – damn, he was efficient – into the sink and soaped them up. By the time he'd finished drying them off and putting them away, the cake seemed coolish to the touch, but fuck, he had only like ten minutes left.

He grabbed a knife to spread the rest of the frosting on. Since time had passed since he'd burned himself on that damn dish, he was thinking more clearly. He poured it out of the bowl directly onto the cake, and spent the next little while trying to spread it nice and evenly; it was kinda difficult, though, because it really wasn't light and fluffy at all, but more like stiff and kinda grainy. Just keep trying, he told himself, cause Sammy only turns thirteen once.

He must've lost track of time while he was trying to perfect the look of the frosting, because what brought him back out of his head was the sound of the front door slamming shut. _Shit, shit, shit_ , he thought. Because now that Sam was here, he was suddenly extremely nervous, and embarrassed, by this whole thing.

The sound of Sam's large feet shuffling across the hardwood reached him in the kitchen, and he could tell Sam was headed in his direction. He didn't know what to do, suddenly feeling self-conscious beyond belief. As he stood, to go where, he didn't know, Sam appeared in the doorway.

Dean just stood there, in front of the cake that was sitting on the table, with his arms dropped to his sides and a look on his face like a deer caught in headlights. Sam stood looking back at him with what appeared to be a sense of amusement.

"Hey, Sammy," he finally croaked. "Happy birthday, big guy."

At that, Sam just burst out laughing. What the _fuck_ , Dean thought. This is what he gets? Sam laughing in his face?

"Dean, what'd you do?" Sam asked, his chuckling toned down and his voice sounding actually kind of timid.

"Baked you a fucking cake, kid. What does it look like?"

"Looks like you got into a fight with the cookie monster," Sam replied.

Dean had no idea what Sam was talking about. But when he brought his hands up, he noticed that they were covered in chocolate frosting, and when he looked further, he saw that he'd somehow gotten flour all over the front of his black t-shirt.

He looked up at Sam sheepishly and raised his hands in some sort of hmm-whaddya-know gesture. Sam couldn't seem to resist laughing again as he made his way across the kitchen towards Dean. But when he got close, he just smiled, reached out a hand to Dean's face, and trickled his finger across Dean's cheek. When Sam pulled his hand back to stick his finger in his mouth, Dean saw that it was coated in frosting. Goddamn, he was a mess.

Dean punched Sam in the shoulder and said, "Quit laughing at me, punk." Smiled shyly as he added, "Slaved all damn day."

Sam's grin was wide as he said, "Dean, you didn't have to."

"Think I don't know that? I wanted to." He couldn't help but turn his eyes to the floor. "You only turn thirteen once, Sammy."

Sam brushed a hand over Dean's arm, actually squeezed a little bit, and it felt amazing since it was so freaking sore, though Dean'd _never_ admit it. "So, should we have a piece?" Dean asked. "Whaddya say?"

"I say, yes, sir."

They grabbed a couple plates and forks from the cupboards and sat together at the little round table in the center of the kitchen. Then Dean realized they'd need a knife, so he quickly grabbed one and handed it to Sam, saying, "Birthday boy gets the honor."

A slight flush crossed from Sam's ears and cheeks down to his neck, but he recovered quickly. He cut two large pieces and tried hard to get them on to the plates without toppling them.

Dean waited for Sam to take the first bite. It was his day, after all. When Sam started to chew, a strange look crossed his face, and the "Mmmm," that passed his lips sounded a little off. But he swallowed it down and jammed his fork in for another, so Dean followed suit.

He was expecting pure bliss to explode across his taste buds with all the TLC that went into the goddamned cake, but what he actually tasted was a not-very-sweet, dense and crumbly mess. He forced it down and squawked, "Yuck! Sam, why didn't you say something?!"

Sam laughed heartily and said, "Cause it tastes good, Dean."

"What-thefuck-ever. Tastes nasty, Sammy. Quit kidding yourself." But Dean was feeling good, nonetheless. Proud of himself for making the piece of shit, and fond of his little brother for pretending it was good and actually stomaching it. He laughed out, "Guess I probably should've actually followed the recipe."

Sam just raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that said _You think?_

"Hey! That shit was hard. I fucking tried, Sam."

"I know you did." Sam exchanged his snarky look with a smile that spread across his whole face, his eyes lit right up. "And I like it. Can taste the love."

Dean smacked Sam in the arm, saying, "Hey, no chick flick moments." But, really, he couldn't help but feel the love as well. His little Sammy, growing up, becoming a teenager. He could hardly believe it.

"Sorry, dude." Sam took another bite of the rotten cake and said with his mouth full, "Just— Thanks." He paused to finish chewing, looked up from his plate and over at Dean, smiling wide, and continued, "Really. Thank you, Dean."

"No problem." Dean couldn't help but return Sam's smile with one of his own. "Happy birthday, Sammy."


End file.
